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‘I am. But . . .’ Explaining meant confessing secrets. His family. His visions. That Loren wasn’t who he claimed to be. Instead, he ignored Felix’s heavy gaze and watched flayed flesh. ‘Can we go? Before I do something foolish, like intervene.’

‘Nine!’ Another crack. The crowd tittered, disgusted and amused by the spectacle.

Felix made Loren wait in the moment a beat longer. Then, ‘Follow me.’

In an alley a few streets up, a pair of old sandals sat abandoned. Felix laughed triumphantly upon discovering them, as if he’d found a pile of coins, and strapped them onto his bloodstained feet.

‘Is that . . .?’ Loren’s question seemed too silly to finish. Still, Felix rolled his eyes.

‘Yes, this is what he nearly killed me over. Don’t you know? These shoes are magic.’

‘Piss off.’ Loren was suddenly glad for the veils. He couldn’t stomach watching Felix’s mouth curl into a smirk.

Felix led him across the city, zigzagging streets, until they wound up behind a row of shops in the heart of the city, a dingy place populated by barrels and stacked crates.

‘Stay here.’ Felix ducked away. Moments later, he emerged, clutching a bundle wrapped in his headscarf.

‘Your hair.’ Loren glanced around, as if a soldier might be squatting behind a crate.

‘Rather they see that than this. Do you have somewhere we can go? Not the temple. Somewhere private.’

Loren cringed. He’d reckoned Felix would learn sooner or later where he lived. But he’d rather banked on later. Still, he nodded. ‘I have a place. ’

Hand against peeling wood, Loren hesitated. They stood at the back of a building he knew all too well. He sensed Felix would recognise the type, too, the moment they stepped inside.

‘You can’t laugh,’ Loren warned.

‘Is it funny?’

‘Not to me.’

‘Then I won’t,’ Felix promised.

Regardless, Loren took a deep breath before pushing open the door.

It swung to reveal a dim corridor, and Loren beckoned in Felix, who paused, scanning the place. Cubicles sectioned by curtains, explicit paintings above the booths, and the pervasive smell of musk and sweat – Loren knew what Felix must be piecing together in his head.

‘Upstairs.’ Loren beelined for the staircase.

Too late. One of the curtains rustled open and Elias slunk out. Hooded eyes half closed, he blinked at Felix sleepily, his oversized tunic dipping off one shoulder.

Elias broke into a grin. ‘Hello there. Can I call you Fox? You look like one.’

Felix met him with a frown.

‘Wanting something in particular?’ Elias yawned. Then he noticed Loren, and his mouth slid into a pout. ‘Oh. He yours?’

‘No,’ Loren insisted. ‘He’s a friend.’

‘I’m insulted.’ The pout deepened. Elias stretched his arms high, tunic riding up his thighs, and propped a hip against the doorframe of his cubicle. ‘Here I thought I was your only friend.’

Hardly. These days, Loren didn’t know what he and Elias were.

Once upon a time, watching his skin stretch would’ve made Loren blush.

It was only natural. The two were near the same age, living in proximity, and Elias had been so sweet that Loren dared hope .

. . But Elias caught on and wasted no time constructing boundaries: he was off-limits.

Until the day came when Elias bought his freedom, he would grow no roots in Pompeii.

Cut off from the source, Loren’s feelings had died an abrupt, pitiful death.

The awkwardness, however, lingered.

‘Elias, this is Felix. He’s staying for . . . a while.’ Loren forced his voice to loosen. ‘I’m keeping him out of trouble.’

From the way Felix’s arms tensed around his cloth-covered bundle, Loren guessed his phrasing was bad, but he had no time to correct himself before Elias smirked.

‘Keeping him,’ Elias repeated, dripping with implication. ‘Then I’ll do my best not to be the trouble.’

Loren’s face flamed.

This time, he succeeded in ushering Felix away. They rushed upstairs, pausing only long enough for Loren to shove Felix through his door and shut it behind them.

Felix sniggered. ‘You live in a lupanar.’

‘You promised not to laugh.’

‘I’m not laughing.’ His grin widened. ‘Virgin in a brothel.’

Loren grabbed the nearest object, a leather shoe, and chucked it. Felix ducked easily, and it thudded against the wall.

‘It’s cheap . And they’ve been kind to me, Elias and the women.’ The landlord was a different story, but Loren rarely saw him around. ‘It isn’t like I work downstairs. It’s only a room.’

Felix sobered. ‘Barely. More like a closet.’

He wasn’t wrong. Long and narrow, it barely held a bed, storage trunk, and washbasin. If not for the window, Loren would call it a closet, too. Speaking of which – Loren latched the shutters, then sat cross-legged on his bed .

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Show me.’

Felix fiddled with the wrapping. ‘Your turn not to laugh.’

He didn’t give Loren a chance to promise. He pulled the cloth away, and any laughter Loren might have felt was punched from his chest.

In his hand, like it meant nothing, Felix held the helmet of Mercury.

Loren’s world plummeted, the bottom of his stomach dropping out.

Felix flipped it, knocked his knuckles on the dome. ‘Silly thing, isn’t it?’

‘Felix.’ Cold slipped down Loren’s throat.

‘Right there for the taking. If the statesman wanted it so badly, anyone could have grabbed it for him.’

‘Stop.’ Loren pressed a hand to his mouth, squeezing his eyes tight against a wave of nausea. Gods alive . He stumbled to his feet, dizzy. ‘You need to put that thing back. Tonight. Now. It can’t stay here. I don’t know how you took it, but—’

Felix offered it out. ‘It’s a helmet.’

‘It,’ Loren said, stepping back, ‘is cursed.’

That insufferable smile returned. ‘This old thing? Should I try it on?’ Felix bowed his head to duck into the crown.

Loren’s vision flashed white. He teetered forward. Collapsed.

Black wave. Copper streak.

The ghost splitting a stormy sky.

Swirling gaze. A stinging strike.

White wings splayed.

Then – oblivion.

He gasped and found himself kneeling, palms to the floor. Scruffy over-mended sandals and gore-splattered feet occupied his line of sight. Loren looked up. Felix’s grey eyes were wide. He gripped the helmet in one hand.

‘Don’t,’ Loren said. Blood washed across his mouth, salty and sharp. He must’ve bitten his tongue. ‘Never put it on. ’

‘What happened?’ Felix bent, but it brought the helmet too close. The hair on Loren’s arms stood on end. He scrambled back until he hit the wall. Felix paused, then retreated, putting a closet’s worth of distance between them.

‘Isis.’ Loren slumped, pushing the heels of his hands against his cheekbones.

If he’d thought their situation unstable before, they now navigated treacherous ground.

Fear pulsed thin and choppy in his veins.

‘That’s why the crowd at the Priest’s session was so nervous.

That’s why the guard got whipped outside Apollo’s temple.

The helmet is one of Pompeii’s most valuable treasures.

It’s been on display for centuries. The Romans stole it from the Corinthians ages ago, then gifted it to us.

No one’s been able to move it since. It should have burned you to the bone. ’

‘It’s a helmet.’

Loren shook his head slowly. ‘Felix, you stole a relic belonging to a god. That’s Mercury’s helmet.’

‘Mercury?’ Felix’s fingers tightened. He looked at what he held.

Loren followed his gaze. For something claiming to be Mercury’s, it was of unusual design.

Most depictions of the god of money and merchants, travel and thieves, showed him wearing a wide-brimmed hat, the kind fieldworkers wore in vineyards.

Apart from the crested wings framing the face, the similarities ended there.

This was a soldier’s helm, with a steep nose plate and angled eyes to strike fear in battle. This was a helmet for Mercury at war.

Whatever power it housed was angry.

‘You took a helmet that no one else can touch, and the ground shook.’ Loren’s stomach churned. ‘Your blood hit the altar, and it shook again.’

‘Coincidence,’ Felix insisted, even as he swallowed.

‘I don’t believe in those.’

‘Start. It makes life easier.’ He planted the helmet on Loren’s bed. The dark hollows of its eyes stretched for eternity, delving to Tartarus. ‘ Mercury means nothing to me. I don’t worship him. Neither do you. What does it matter?’

‘It matters because – because this is bad. Mercury is sacred to traders, especially in a merchant town like Pompeii. The Etruscans worshipped him, too, and before them, the Greeks named him Hermes. You disrespected a very old, very powerful god.’ Loren’s thoughts tripped over each other, faster than he could keep pace with.

‘The divine energy that helmet holds should not be in the hands of a human.’

‘It’s a helmet ,’ Felix said, as if repeating it a third time would make it true.

‘It’s a weapon for someone with the wrong intentions. We need a plan. The statesman you mentioned – who is he? Why does he want it?’

‘It would look pretty on his shelf. Why else do rich people own shiny things? He offered to bargain, to pay me to bring it to him, and . . .’ Felix shook his head. ‘He’d sooner kill me to keep me quiet. So I ran.’

Loren wondered what Felix wasn’t telling him. But extracting answers from Felix was like pulling a soured tooth from a snarling dog. Impossible to do without getting bitten. He set the statesman aside for now, returning to the bigger issue.

‘This is bad . Why you? Why now?’ Questions bubbled and spilled over, always Loren’s same inquiries, but Felix pressed his back to the door, his defences creeping higher. Loren examined him again, head to bloody hem. ‘Who are you?’

It seemed to throw Felix. His brow furrowed, but before Loren could make sense of his expression, he said, tone flippant, ‘I told you. Just Felix.’

If he meant it as a joke, it didn’t land. Loren stared, struck, until shock morphed into indignation. After years haunted by this boy, Felix finally stood before him, and Loren was still no closer to an answer. Hot tears pricked his eyes. He clenched his fists, knuckles blanching .

‘Are you capable of taking this seriously,’ Loren said around the lump in his throat, ‘or is everything a laughing matter? Mock me if you want, but I will not let you endanger my city with your greed. Put it back.’

Felix’s smirk dropped. ‘No. Not now. You saw the Forum, it was swarming. I won’t risk my skin to return a helmet.’

‘You’re the only one who can touch it, and it can’t stay with me.’

‘Then I’ll take it when I leave. Sell it. Bury it.’

‘Do you want to be caught? You have to stay with me.’

Felix snarled. ‘I’m not a dog.’

‘I would like you more if you were.’ Loren used the window ledge to hoist himself up.

His knees still shook from his fit, but he managed to toss his laundry bag to Felix.

Then he unlatched his trunk, shoving aside scraps and trinkets and other old temple offerings to form a helmet-sized hiding spot.

Felix didn’t utter a word as he cinched the bag tight and nestled the helmet inside.

Loren could only pray Mercury wouldn’t take offence at being housed next to old linens.

‘Stay till week’s end,’ Loren said, latching the lid, a temporary tomb.

‘Four days. The city has twice as many eyes on it than usual. We need hope of catching the thief to wane and the festival to end. If I haven’t figured out what the helmet means for you – and the city – by then, you can return it and go.

In the meantime, I’ll keep you out of the statesman’s hands – and anyone else who wants a piece of you. I’m offering safety. Will you take it?’

‘You? Protect me?’ Felix said in disbelief.

‘Unless you want to risk it on your own in a city that would do far worse than whip you,’ said Loren hotly. ‘You say you don’t care what the helmet means? Fine. But I know you came here for a reason. I know we were supposed to meet. I intend to find out why.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘Swear it. Four days. ’

Felix’s mouth curled with brewing argument, but something akin to a shadow flitted across his face, and his jaw tightened. Stiff-necked, he gave a sharp, unwilling nod. ‘Is that all?’

The sneer in his voice crept under Loren’s skin and burrowed deep. Was that all?

Black wave. Copper streak. Details spiralling clearer.

For the first time, Loren wished he was mad. He wished his nightmares were the product of a snapped mind, the way his parents wrote them off. He didn’t want Felix to be the catalyst of the end. He didn’t want the burden of uncovering the helmet’s secrets.

Except, he realised with a twist, he’d asked for exactly that. Only hours ago, he had longed for an opportunity to prove himself. This was it, and he wouldn’t miss his chance.

‘No. I want your word that once you leave Pompeii,’ Loren said, ‘you won’t ever return.’

A long, claustrophobic silence passed before Felix finally spat, ‘Fine by me.’

Four days. Loren only had to survive four terrible days. But when he turned from the trunk to find Felix’s back to him, his eyes caught on a stitched arm and bandaged calves, and how slanted afternoon light cast copper hair in red and gold, fire on a hillside, and Loren thought—

Easier said than done.